Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Love Quotes

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From Cecil Forrester:
Nothing like love-letters for filling up a rainy morning. A mistress gives a man such an interest in himself! You cannot run your fingers through your hair, without a vision of the locket wherein one of your curls reposes on the fairest neck in the world. An east-wind only conjures up a host of "sweet anxieties ;" and if the worst comes to the worst, you can sit down and write sonnets to your inamorata's eyebrow.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Who shall say
The love of genius is a common thing,
Such as the many feel—half selfishness,
Half vanity?—for genius is divine,
And, like a god, doth turn its dwelling-place
Into a temple; and the heart redeem'd
By its fine influence is immortal shrine
For love's divinity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She leant upon her harp, and thousands looked
On her in love and wonder—thousands knelt
And worshipp'd in her presence—burning tears,
And words that died in utterance, and a pause
Of breathless, agitated eagerness,
First gave the full heart's homage: then came forth
A shout that rose to heaven; and the hills,
The distant valleys, all rang with the name
Of the Æolian Sappho—every heart
Found in itself some echo to her song.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It was my evil star above,
Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong;
It was not song that taught me love,
But it was love that taught me song.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
O, love should be
An ever-changing thing, —
The love that I could worship must
Be ever on the wing.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
He must be rich whom I could love,
His fortune clear must be,
Whether in land or in the funds,
'Tis all the same to me.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
THE present! it is but a drop from the sea
In the mighty depths of eternity.
I love it not—it taketh its birth
Too near to the dull and the common earth.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Do any thing but love ; or if thou lovest
And art a Woman, hide thy love from him
Who thou dost worship ; never let him know
How dear he is ; flit like a bird before him, —
Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower ;
But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird,
When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
And perish in forgetfulness.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
On a bough,
The only one chained by the honeysuckle,
Sat two white Doves, upon each neck a tint
Like the rose-stain within the delicate shell
Of the sea-pearl, as Love breathed on their plumes.
And each was mirror'd in the other's eyes,
Floating and dark, a paradise of passion.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There must be some deep-rooted anti-social principle in every man's nature, so dearly does he love aught that separates him from his kind ; or is it but one of the many shapes taken by that mental kaleidoscope, vanity, the varying and the glittering, the desire of distinction, sinking into that of notice?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love may be increased with fears,
May be fanned with sighs,
Nurst by fancies, fed by doubts
But without Hope it dies!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Then they were silent:—words are little aid
To Love, whose deepest vows are ever made
By the heart's beat alon.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Why should I love? flinging down pearl and gem
To those who scorn, at least care not for them:
Why should I hate? as blades in scabbards melt,
I have no power to make my hatred felt;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Harsh all earth's destinies, — but his most hard
Who may not trust the praise he loves to hear —
Who may not hold his fame sure till, too late,
The seal of death and truth is set by fate.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The very sound of his own steps disturbed him ; and he flung himself on a couch, to enjoy without interruption the exquisite melody. The intense perfume of the flowers intoxicated him like wine. He felt as if lulled in a delicious trance, in which one image became more and more distinct — the pale but lovely face of his hostess. His heart was filling with love for those radiant eyes. A softer fragrance breathed around him — it was her breath. He looked, and she was again bending over him ; he saw himself mirrored in the moonlight of her eyes.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love is divine in our belief
Of its eternity — how vain,
When we have known that Love can die,
To think that he can live again !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
His shroud was damp, his face was white:
He said,—"I cannot sleep,
Your tears have made my shroud so wet;
Oh, mother, do not weep!"
Oh, love is strong!—the mother's heart
Was filled with tender fears;
Oh, love is strong!—and for her child
Her grief restrained its tears.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
True love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a flower, a purple flower
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O'er which Love has breathed a power and spell
The truth of whispering hope to tell.
(According to the Lady's Book of Flowers, 1842, this is the centaury)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
We met in secret : mystery is to love
Like perfume to the flower ; the maiden's blush
Looks loveliest when her cheek is pale with fear.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The influence of a woman's first love is felt on her whole after-existence: never can she dream such dream again. For a woman there is no second-love—youth, hope, belief, are all given to her first attachment; if unrequited, the heart becomes its own Prometheus, creative, ideal, but with the vulture preying upon it for ever.—If deceived, the whole poetry of life is gone; the very essence of poetry is belief, and how can she, whose sweet eager credulity has once learnt the bitter truth—that its reliance was in vain, how can she ever believe again?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But Love's bright fount is never pure;
And all his pilgrims must endure
All passion's mighty suffering
Ere they may reach the blessed spring.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Awakening hope has named the name
Of love, or blown its spark to flame.
Restlessness, but as the winds range
From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower;
Changefulness, but as rainbows change,
From colour'd sky to sunlit hour.
Ay, well indeed may minstrel sing,—
What have the heart and year like spring?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
You said in our old ash-tree a bird had built its nest ;
Perhaps this very linnet has there its place of rest.
Now who will keep his little ones when night begins to fall ?
They have no other shelter, and they will perish all.
There'll be no more sweet singing within that lonely grove ;
Now, Henry, free your prisoner, I pray you, for my love.
Our father is a soldier, and in some distant war
He too might be a prisoner in foreign lands afar.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The scar of fire, the dint of steel,
Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I have a summer gift,
A sunny gift for thee :
See this white vase, where blooms
A beautiful rose tree.
And on its crimson leaves
Your heart must moralize,
For love a lesson takes
Of every leaf that dies.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love is a pearl of purest hue,
But stormy waves are round it;
And dearly may a woman rue,
The hour that she found it.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is no attachment stronger, more unselfish, than the love between brother and sister, thrown on the world orphans at an early age, with none to love them save each other. They feel how much they stand alone, and this draws them more together. Constant intercourse has given that perfect understanding which only familiarity can do ; hopes, interests, sorrows, are alike in common. Each is to either a source of pride ; it is the tenderness of love without its fears, and the confidence of marriage, without its graver and more anxious character. The fresh impulses of youth are all warm about the heart.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I do love violets:
They tell the history of woman's love;
They open with the earliest breath of spring;
Lead a sweet life of perfume, dew, and light;
And, if they perish, perish with a sigh
Delicious as that life.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Dear friend, if it be your's to have in some deep vale a home,
Where you may dream of faith and fate, and all the great, to come.
If such a place of tranquil rest be to your future given,
Where every hour of solitude is consecrate to heaven,
Oh, leave it not ! let this vain life fret its few hours afar,
Where joy departs, and glory mocks the wide world's weary war
Let not its rude and angry tide with jarring torrent wake
The silence that the poplars love, of your own limpid lake.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon